﻿NOTHING DOING ---by T-Bone Slim

T-bone Slim, the brilliant disappointment, undertakes a pencil in his palsied fingers to point out to the palpitating population that all is not yet lost. Hope still lingers. An encouraging feature.
....The brains of the country say, “the brawn of the land is too damn dumb to do anything for itself.” Yes? yes? and when we ask them to do it for us, they shout in horror: “My God! that would be paternalism!”
In other words, dumb as we are, we have got to do it ourselves.
They won’t!
To illustrate: Johannes Farmer has for years been crying for relief at the feet of the politicians—it’s a wonder he didn’t get kickt in his cornfed complexion for having the nerve to approach those great men.
And so it goes—understand me right—the politician reasons (many of them do) that “you’re twenty-one, ain’t you; you’re old enough to walk, and you ought to have sense enough not to try to adopt a father for yourself, at this late date.” So they do. And for that reason they refuse to dish out paternalism—you may as well get up, and brush your knees—nothing doing.
Prayers before the legislature are not entirely dissimilar to those before the high priest or archbishop, as we shall see:
It is easy to offer a soul-felt prayer when the archbishop steps forth in all his glory, pomp, dignity, robes and vestments, collar upside down. Let the glory, pomp and dignity pass. (We’ve seen such on wild bronchos.) Let us rather “flank” the robes and vest Could you pray, I ask you, if the great venerable archbishop stepped forth, on the “rostrum,” without a stitch of clothing on his back?
Could you worship his highness under those circumstances?
You might and then again you might not; and, to be frank, I think your mind would be worried about the great man catching cold—selah.
It follows then that we do not pray to the man but to the robes . . .
Would not a golden calf serve the same purpose.
We worship position and uniforms—both more or less artificial; position being the more entitled to respect as it hinges on association of more than one (even a common thief can robe up by raiding a parked buggy). Therefore, we must conclude, a prayer offered to either robes, britches or polished shoes is a terrific waste of wind: nothing doing.
But there is an anachronism: Legislatures are moved almost entirely by prayer (such as the power trust’s, Daughters of American Tribulation’s, and various other patriotic institutions), which all goes to show the holt prayer has tken upon the body politic. No doubt the legislators could move without a prayer and would move without one— hence it follows, here again prayer is discredited.
But there are certain benefits to be derived from praying; provided the praying is done in a large, resonant voice, i. e.: articulation or the exercising of vocal chords more than offsets the curse of self-pity and sentimentalism peculiar to moans for aid; making it a better than 50-50 proposition.
A silent prayer Is a total loss—a disaster.
A prayer by proxy is not so bad. The “you pray for me and I’ll pray, for you,” is still better; insofar as both in that case can remain deeply disinterested and reap the full benefit of vocal exercise—and other blessings, if any—let’s hope not too many.
Note: This article goes on and on—even when I’m out of paper. Amen.

FINE-GRADING IT

The fashionable society is fashionable indeed—it can be fashioned into anything from a moron ape to lascivious rake.
Much of the time no fashioning is needed—they’re born and bred that way—poor quarter wits!
Much praise should be given the American press for printing their pictures of semi-luscid, conventional moments and hiding the record of their sustained occupational lewdness.
Truth does rasp, doesn’t it?

12,000,000 mothers and wives work in the industries, offices and stores, in these prosperous United States.
Married life is taking on new raptures for the husband and father. A few more improvements like that and heaven will lose all its enchantment—as far as daddy is concerned. Why, it’s getting so that a man can’t get a job unless he’s a mother of half a dozen kids.
I see where a woman masqueraded as man for 40 years—she’a gone back to dresses.)
Rumor has it that big burly men are stealing skirts off the clothes lines. Some would say the poor devils is gonna try to land a job.
Nix, on that stuff—man might work in woman’s clothes but he will never work for woman’s wages—the bait is stale.
He want the skirt so his wife can go to work. Evidently there’s a scarcity of workingskirts—worn out probably. Well, let ‘em take turns—we won’t stop the wheels of progress.
It was the typewriter that first pulled the divan from under American Beauty and shoved her on a hardwood chair. T. B. S.